It's Story Time!

I have more spare time now. I've started limiting my social media use (well, I haven't fully stopped using it), which has allowed me to read my books before going to bed.

What I read was my childhood magazine, Bobo. They have a special edition for their 50th anniversary. Bobo itself, is a monthly Dutch children's magazine published by Blink Publishers.

Before I go further, how many of you were lucky enough to have story time before going to bed when you were a child? To my knowledge and as far as I observed my surrounding, I think not everyone would have this kind of experience. I was lucky enough to have been given the experience of story time before I go to bed. Well, remembering those memories, to be honest, it makes me hold back tears. I'm living abroad and a physical distance separates me from home and my parents, and at the same time I'm an adult now, a time dimension separates me from being that happy little girl again.

Mom and Dad will take turn to recite me different stories with their own styles. My Mom would bring the Bobo magazine, read it to me with her nice intonation, and teach me to read at the same time. We're looking at the illustrations inside every story. While my Dad has his own style when it comes to story time. He would have narrated folklore, prophet stories, without any single books! He used his intonation and hand gestures to depict the plots of every story. That was a wonderful experience for me.

I have a little brother, and there's a 6-year gap between us. I remember my Dad did the same thing with story time when my brother grew up. I'm not sure, but I think my brother doesn't remember those memories much. During that period of time, we had a situation that caused Mom to work in our small stall, and Dad was often away for work. Both were busy, which meant less story time, and worse, no story time at all. My brother was still at his early childhood at that time.

Long story short, I notice something different between me and my brother. He doesn't seem to like reading as much as I do. Also, I think the way we think are also kind of different. I don't know if it was caused by the amount of story time we had throughout our childhood, but I personally feel like it affects how my imagination works and the way I perceive the world.

Little did I know, from what I understand, it has been proven that story time does indeed help turn a child into a reader. At least, that's what I read from this journal which talks about Promoting Emerging Language and Literacy During Storytime.

In my opinion, having a regular story time is really important as it is helping in children developing stage to build their imagination, boost their literacy skill, and also building a good relationship between parents and their children.

Time goes by, people have limited the paper usage in almost every aspects, and some books are replaced by the electronic form of it. Moreover, the presence of the internet, specifically social media, has changed the way we interact with each other, including how young parents nurture their children. I sometimes observe how the young families started to introduces gadget in the very early stage of their children age, and I have witnessed some kids are experiencing language and speech development delay. This has also been proven in many journals that I have found

I hope that in this era of Artificial Intelligence, more people will still be aware of the importance of the early-stage development of children. Don't let Artificial Intelligent outstrip and "overwrite" our natural intelligent as a human-being. One of them is through story time.